Firefox 3.5 for Mac OS X

I’m really happy with Firefox 3.5, which was born about a week ago. Get it here (free).

Speed

The first thing I noticed was speed. Since Safari 4 beta I’d been using that for its speed. But Safari’s developer tools, while much improved over 3.x, aren’t quite as good, and the extensibility isn’t in the same universe. So when Firefox 3.5 seemed about as snappy as the quick Safari 4, I was all smiles, and back to using it full-time.

Extensions

The second thing I noticed is that many most of my extensions are ready for 3.5, a thing that had plagued me on all the 3.0.x increments. I LOVE how Firefox reports on extension problems before you upgrade, and helps you get the new ones with one click after an upgrade. Outstanding. Mac-like.

Shadows

The third thing, and one I never read about anywhere else, is support for the text-shadow CSS attribute. I was shocked this morning when I looked at one of my sites, and the headers had shadows. I thought “ooops I’m in Safari”… but no, it’s the new 3.5 support for this magnificent text-shadow. I love things that allow me to make sites look great while keeping them lightweight and SEO-friendly.